Ah, so that’s how Enid ended up on her own, huh? In a shocking flashback to her life before Alexandria, we learn that Enid watched her parents get eaten by walkers while they were trying to get a car started. Somehow she manages to escape the attack, but when we see her she is covered in fresh blood and sobbing in the front seat of the car her parents were working on. Rough stuff.
Later when she makes her way through the woods she leans down to write a message in the dirt: “JSS.” What could it mean? She also writes it on the window of a car she steals from a walker, and spells it out using the bones of an innocent turtle she kills for food. Somewhere along the way she ends up at the gates of Alexandria, and they let her in. That’s when you see that “JSS” is also carved into the skin of her hand. Ouch.
Back to normal time! Carol is being her totally normal creepy self as she mingles with the neighbor ladies who think she is nothing more than a housewife who can cook better than them. It’s so awkward to watch, not just because seeing Carol being so neighborly is weird, but because these other housewives are complaining about first world problems like not having a pasta maker. A pasta maker? It’s a zombie apocalypse, and you’re worried about a pasta maker? Ugh, I hate you delusional neighbor lady.
But, Carol isn’t one to hide her stripes for too long. When she returns home she finds Sam sitting on her steps pouting. Without even saying hello she reminds him that his father, Pete, used to hit him… and now he’s dead. “You live with it,” she says pretty harshly before walking up her steps and going inside without him. Cold? Yes, but also the truth in their world. Maybe one day Sam will be stronger than the rest because Carol was so mean to him. Maybe.
Speaking of Sam’s dad, the next thing we see is Jessie calling her older son, Ron, down to meet her in the kitchen. When he finally meets her in the kitchen she offers to cut his hair, which he refuses to do. Things escalate pretty quickly, and Ron swears at her and tells her that “cutting hair” is just her way of trying to talk about things with him. Jessie quickly realizes that he blames her for Pete’s death, and she just as quickly reminds Ron how dangerous his father was. “Rick is dangerous,” Ron tells Jessie, but she says this isn’t about him. That’s when Ron asks if her and Rick are friends, and she says yes. Spoiler alert: they are a lot more than friends, Ron.
Alexandria Continues To Thrive
In another part of Alexandria Maggie is trying to pull Deanna out of her sadness. There is a section of the town where Reg was building an expansion so that they could start farming, and Maggie discovered crates full of seeds at a nursery nearby. Maggie reminds Deanna that there is still a town full of people she hand picked to be there that needs to continue surviving, and farming fruits and vegetables is the answer. Deanna doesn’t say a word, but it’s clear Maggie’s word hit home because she starts to dig.
As proof that the town is still kicking after both Pete and Reg kicked it, per se, we watch as Eugene and Tara debate how they can use the church space for different projects. They’re having the conversation as they walk into the so-called doctor’s office looking for aspirin, and there is a blonde woman sitting in the corner that they don’t see until she speaks. It turns out her name is Denise and she’s been appointed the “new doctor” now that Pete, the old doctor, is gone. She admits that she’s more or less terrified to be put in charge of helping people, mostly because she’s not a medical doctor but more of a psychologist, but she’s Alexandria’s best shot. Eugene is immediately unimpressed by her, especially when she takes a look at Tara who is still suffering from headaches after her nasty head injury. When she jokes that she can’t kill Tara, Eugene reminds her that she totally could if she misses something like a hematoma. (That’s a blood clot, for those of you too lazy to Google like I just did.)
Elsewhere Carl is pushing baby Judith in her stroller through the neighborhood. As he;s strolling he finds Enid and Ron sitting in the grass talking quietly, and he’s immediately heartbroken. As you might remember, it was his hand Enid was holding on the night Pete and Reg were killed at the meeting. Ironically, Ron stumbled upon them that night, too. But, before Carl can get too upset over a girl, Father Gabriel approaches him asking to be taught how to defend himself. Carl is angry with Father Gabriel and rightfully so now that he knows what the man told Deanna about his dad and their family. Just as Carl agrees to help him he turns to watch as Ron embraces Enid in a hug. She’s surprised by it, but she hugs him back… and makes eye contact with Carl as he walks away.
We go back to Carol who is cooking away in her kitchen when she notices the neighbor she told to stop smoking in the house is now doing so on her lawn. Then out of nowhere a large, dirty man attacks her with a machete. Once he knocks her to the ground he hits her in the head, likely killing her. Carol doesn’t stick around to watch, instead she runs out of the kitchen… hopefully to get her gun.
The Wolves Slaughter As Many As They Can
The screams from the neighbor are heard throughout Alexandria, especially by Deanna and Maggie who are busy working on their farm land. They call out to Richard who is keeping guard on the wall, but before he can respond he’s hit with some sort of fire ball and falls to the ground. By the time Maggie gets to him, he’s dead, and when she looks up she catches a glimpse of someone climbing over the top of the wall. Wolves?
Just as Carol goes running out of the house Carl comes downstairs to tell her he can see them coming in from all over. She tells him to stay in the house and keep Judith safe and for once it seems like he might listen. Meanwhile Sam is begging Jessie not to leave the house even though she has to go find Ron. Before she can leave she hears a window break, and that’s when she manages to keep Sam quiet as they go up the stairs and hide in a closet that locks from the inside. Something that likely came in handy when Pete was on a bender.
Back at Carl’s house he’s walking the first floor with a gun in hand when he hears someone fiddling with the back door. He prepares to shoot the person trying to get in only to find that it’s Enid, who he chastises for not knocking first. Um, now is not a time for knocking, Carl. Apparently she has a massive ring of keys, likely to every house and building in town, and she hands them to Carl for safe keeping. She tells him she came to say goodbye but he tells her she’s not going anywhere, that she needs to help him keep Judith safe. It’s great that he’s so gung-ho about staying in the house for once, but it’s clear Enid has plans. Plans that don’t involve him.
When they sit on the floor and talk Enid reminds Carl that Alexandria was too big to protect, that there were too many blind spots. “That’s how we were able to…,” she starts, only interrupted by Carl. Is Enid in on this?
As this is happening we see shots of the people taking over the town, and they are not looking to hold anyone hostage. Everyone they come in contact with is killed. Carol watches as one man repeatedly stabs a woman who has definitely been dead for a while. When he stops it’s only to use her blood to write a “W” on his forehead, thus confirming the Wolves have taken over.
The Wolves are much more brutal than anyone could have imagined. Well, except for maybe Robert Kirkman. As Carol runs around Alexandria unnoticed she discovers another man chopping a body into pieces. Why? He’s already dead!
When she turns a corner she finds another one of the neighbor women she was chatting with that morning under attack. The man stabs her in the chest right before Carol grabs him and kills him. Once he’s down she grabs the woman who is bleeding out and holds her until she goes silent, which is when she stabs her in the back of the head much like how Rick killed Carter during the season premiere. The look on Carol’s face once she puts the body on the ground is unclear. It looks like a mixture of grief and fear, along with pure shock. Things have to be really crazy in order for someone like Carol to be phased by it, so her expression speaks volumes.
We Find Out Where The Horn Comes From
Up in the watch tower Spencer is desperately trying to take out Wolves, but misses a few. That’s when he spots a gigantic truck — likely one from the food warehouse where the Wolves set the trap that caught Aaron and Daryl — barreling down the road towards the gate. He fires repeatedly at the windshield and when the truck rolls off the road and into the wall instead of the gate, it’s clear he got someone. But that’s when the horn blares… the same horn that pulled the hundreds, if not thousands, of walkers off the road at the end of the premiere episode.
Interestingly enough, the truck traps Spencer in the watch tower.
Back at the “doctor’s office” Rosita and Aaron carry in a woman they saved from a Wolf that Spencer missed. Denise is instantly overwhelmed but still goes straight into doctor mode, even as everyone says they have to leave to help others. Eugene is the only one who stays behind, which baffles Aaron. He clearly doesn’t know Eugene very well.
After everyone leaves Denise tells Tara that the woman is bleeding internally, likely because she severed an artery. She tells Tara there is nothing she can do, but Tara demands she try. Even Eugene, terrified and possibly crying, tells Denise not to be coward. A moment passes and Denise caves, demanding surgeon tools before she starts. Nothing quite like hitting the ground running, huh Denise?
The good news? At least we know Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Michonne, Morgan, and everyone else are on their way back. The bad news? They are bringing a ton of walkers with them.
Thankfully, Spencer finally manages to escape the watch tower and get the truck door open. He seems surprised to find a walker inside, and when he pulls out a knife to kill it he hesitates. I cringed in fear when I saw the passenger door open because I thought it could be a wolf, but it’s Morgan… who quickly takes out the walker and asks what happened. He asks Spencer to come help him, but Deanna’s son hesitates again. Morgan tells him to hide before heading inside Alexandria to try and save what’s left of it.
The first wolf he stumbles upon is the one chopping a body into pieces at the entrance, the same one Carol passed before. When the man heads toward Morgan he pulls a trick on his wood stick that makes the man stop. “Quick. Slow,” the man says to Morgan, to which he responds, “Leave. Please.” The man says, “Slow,” then charges at Morgan with the ax. Another wolf comes up alongside him, but instead of going for Morgan he grabs the wolf and kills him. The wolf pulls down the bandana covering it’s face to reveal… it’s Carol! SHE IS SO AWESOME. HOW IS SHE SO AWESOME?
Morgan is mad that Carol killed the man, claiming he could have stopped him without doing so, but she doesn’t care. He quickly tells her about the walker herd but doesn’t share that the walkers are also on their way towards Alexandria. Carol tells him that they have to get to the armory before the Wolves find it, but Morgan is going on and on about not killing people. Now is really not the time for that, Morgan.
Jessie Unleashes On A Wolf
We finally get to see where Ron is as he catches his breath behind a tree. When he hears someone pull a knife he makes a run for it, but the Wolf quickly gains on him. Suddenly a gun fires and the Wolf collapses to the ground begging Carl — yes, Carl just saved Ron’s life — not to kill him. Carl approaches the man only for him to grab his leg, trying to pull the boy down and kill him. Carl finally fires the gun, shooting the Wolf right in the head where he deserves it. He tells Ron to go inside his house where he can keep him safe, but Ron sees Enid standing in the doorway and refuses. Apparently that ignorant little boy thinks running away is a safer option, leaving Carl and Enid to themselves again.
Back at Jessie’s house they are still locked in the closet listening to the foot steps of a Wolf searching their home. When another voice calls for the Wolf, Jessie waits until she hears the foot steps go down the stairs and then leaves Sam alone telling him to lock the door behind her and “be brave.” Poor Sam.
When she gets downstairs there doesn’t seem to be anyone there, but she hears someone fiddling with a door and assumes it’s Ron. “Stay outside Ron!” she yells, only to be attacked by a Wolf woman. The woman is brutal, slamming Jessie against the wall until she’s unconscious… or at least that’s what the woman thinks. Once she turns her back on Jessie she gets up off the floor and grabs a pair of hair cutting scissors off of the counter. Just as the woman picks up the gun Jessie dropped, Jessie stabs her. And then she stabs her again, and again, and again and again. You get the drift. What she doesn’t know is that Ron has come inside and is watching her lose it on this woman, who she then stabs in the head to keep her from coming back as a walker.
Carol continues pretending to be a Wolf with Morgan chained up a she drags him along. It’s working so well other walkers congratulate her on her “get,” meaning Morgan. These people are absolutely insane. As they make their way to the armory that the Wolves don’t know about, Morgan spots Father Gabriel being attacked. Carol says to leave him, but Morgan refuses and pulls out of his chains to go help the priest. Carol continues on alone until another Wolf asks her where she got the gun. She shoots one of them, and the other two follow her down into the gun room. She shoots the woman who collapses to the ground, then fires at the man who she hits… but he is still able to make a run for it. Unfortunately, he now knows about the armory.
Carol is quick to stab the woman in the back of the head as she lays on the floor, but then she hears noises. They are pretty unclear, but she is smart enough to pull open the closet door next to her only to find another Alexandrian woman (whose name I forget, sorry) hiding. Carol grabs a bag and packs it with guns, then very quickly shows the woman how to shoot before leaving her alone. Hopefully that lesson in firearms sticks long enough to keep that woman alive and those guns in place.
Morgan manages to save Father Gabriel, but instead of killing the Wolf he ties him up. Just as the Wolf wakes up he starts to tell Morgan and Father Gabriel that the group has their friends, but then someone shoots him. That someone is Carol, obviously. She hands both of them handguns before seeing Maggie, who she runs towards immediately. They must both be so happy to see the other alive. But when Carol isn’t looking Morgan hands his gun to Father Gabriel and walks away.
Morgan Lets A Few Wolves Escape
It doesn’t take long for Morgan to encounter not one, but at least five Wolves. One of them happens to be a Wolf he ran into in the woods, who he could have easily killed but didn’t. Using his mighty stick, Morgan knocks a bunch of the Wolves out. As he’s doing so he tells them they need to leave because his people have guns, and one could be aimed at his head right now and he wouldn’t know it until they shot him. When the remaining Wolves make a run for it the one Morgan spoke directly to sees a gun on the ground and picks it up, stopping to stare directly at Morgan as he sticks in the back of his pants before running out of the front gate. Is it safe to assume letting that one get away with a gun is going to come back and bite him in the butt? Probably.
Things seem to finally die down within Alexandria’s walls, no pun intended, which allows Carol a moment to sit on her front steps and reflect on the day. We also see Aaron running through the streets until he finds a Wolf that has been killed but not bopped in the head, which he quickly takes care of. That’s when he notices the Wolf’s backpack, which is his backpack, and filled with the photos of Alexandria he used to show people on the outside in hopes of getting them to join the town. Guilt rushes over his expression, and he seems to break down before the camera breaks away.
Inside the doctor’s office Denise is doing chest compressions on Holly, the woman who was brought in earlier that she thought could be bleeding internally. Once she realizes she’s dead she pulls the plug out of the monitor releasing the steady beep of a failed heart rate. Tara tries to comfort her, but Denise ignores her and demands everyone leave her alone with Holly. Her first day on the job and someone has already died in her hands, which is exactly what she was afraid of. Tara reminds her to “get the brain” before leaving Denise alone, just as she asked.
Outside the walls Maggie is walking with Deanna, Spencer, and Rosita, hopefully to make their way back inside and figure out what to do next. Spencer asks Rosita if this is what it’s like “on the outside,” and she tells him it’s pretty damn close. He asks her how she can live knowing that the world is like this, and she tells him you have to have something worth dying for. For Rosita, that’s the group… especially Abraham and Alexandria.
Back at Carl’s house he looks for Enid only to find a note that reads, “Just survive somehow.” It’s very mysterious that she disappeared just as the Wolves did, isn’t it?
Also, is that what JSS meant at the beginning of the episode? JSS = Just Survive Somehow.
Will Morgan Finally Kill Someone Again?
Morgan is still roaming the streets alone when he comes across a walker, who he kills without a second thought. That’s when he notices a house with an open door and heads inside, carefully walking through to see what — or who — is inside. As expected, a Wolf goes at him with a massive knife that gets stuck in the wall. They fight for a bit before the Wolf recognizes him, because it’s one of the two he left alive out in the woods not too long ago. The Wolf then realizes that Morgan can’t kill people and even calls him out on it by telling him he’ll wish he had killed him when he had the chance.
The Wolf lunges at Morgan but isn’t able to overtake him. Once Morgan gets him on the ground he grabs his stick and apologizes to the man before hitting him one last time, the camera going straight to black. Is it safe to assume he just killed someone? Damn, that didn’t take long, did it?
The very last shot of the episode shows Morgan and Carol passing each other silently in the street. The camera then starts to pan out and shows the carnage that the Wolves unleashed on Alexandria. There is smoke looming from the fires, bodies everywhere, blood splattered across white paint… and more.
Tell us, HollywoodLifers — What did YOU think about this epic episode of The Walking Dead? Do you think the Wolves are done with Alexandria, or is this just the beginning? Comment below with your thoughts!
— Lauren Cox
Follow @Iaurencox